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PANAMA FIRST ALERT

The Question on Everyone's Mind: Will it Alleviate the Chaotic Traffic?

October 1, 2007
Panama City, Panama

The new coastal belt will begin just before the Paitilla neighborhood and will parallel the existing Balboa Avenue to where it ends in La Central, just before the Casco Viejo or "old city."

The new road everyone is talking about-the soon-to-be-built cinta costera (coastal belt)-is still the subject of some controversy. Construction is set to begin within the next few weeks, but not everyone agrees that the cinta will solve the chaotic traffic on Panama City's busy Balboa Avenue. The project consists of a four-lane road to be built on landfill in the Bay of Panama, paralleling a stretch of the existing Balboa Avenue. Balboa Avenue will be converted into a one-way street, with all six existing lanes running toward the Avenue's end at the entrance to La Central (near the Casco Viejo, or old city entrance).

Engineer Ulises Lay says he has studied the new road's design and that it won't solve the traffic problem. He admits that getting from Paitilla to the Casco Viejo during business hours will take less than a quarter of the time it currently takes (say, four minutes instead of 20…on a good day). However, he adds, none of the avenues intersecting the new road are being expanded. This means bottlenecks will form at cinta costera exit points-especially in already crowded Punta Paitilla, where the toll road known as the Corredor Sur ends, and in National Assembly area (at the Plaza Cinco de Mayo), near where Balboa Avenue  ends at La Central.

Architect Rodrigo Mejia-Andrion is slightly more optimistic-he believes the project will alleviate traffic for a while, but says this is not a long-term solution. Mejia-Andrion says that there are just too many cars in Panama City and not enough road to accommodate them. Many agree that with better public transportation, less people would have to drive and traffic would improve. Read on…

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